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10 Dec 2016 1:34:33pm

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I welcome this report, as I think it raises some critical issues for our society. We welcome Verity Firth's call on parents to choose public schools and take a stand for the common good.

We made the choice 15 years ago to send our children to public schools for the 13 years of their schooling lives, and have now had two children complete their education in the Northern Territory, and both are now studying at University. We believe in the need for top quality education for all, and its important that we have a diversity in public schools. If all parents who could afford private schools, sent their children to private schools, then we run the danger of having schools based purely on socio-economic lines. It is not to say that there can't be improvements to the public school system, but active parents can play a role on school councils and in other ways to help raise the bar on education and work to improve the system for all students.

There are some broader issues at play as well. For our family, not having to pay public schools fees (e.g. if we sent 2 children for 6 years to private schools), has meant we have not had to have two parents in full time work; we have pretty much always had one parent at home after school; and it has actually meant we have been able to work less - giving us more time with our children and more time to be involved in their activities; coaching sport; volunteering on committees etc.

Sending our children to public schools has meant they have been able to mix with students from diverse cultural, linguistic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Life lessons have been learnt that no amount of money can pay - and are about more than their final ATAR score!

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